
Class ^ 3 g o 
Book / ^ 



f 



SECOND EDITION. 

SPEECH OF WADDY THOMPSON, 

OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 

ON ,, _ __ 

THE PRESIDENT'S ANNUAL MESSAGE TO CONGRESsX^U 



Delivered in the House of Representatives, December 30, 1839, 



The House having under consideration a motion to reconsider the vote by which 20,000 
copies of the President's Message were ordered to be printed — 

Mr. WADDY THOMPSON, of South Carolina, addressed the House as follows: 
I am not willing to allow this message to go forth to the country without commentary 
or discussion. The annual message of the President is always a document possessing great 
interest, as the chart of the annual progress of the Government. This claims more than 
ordinary attention, from the importance, the vita» importance, of the topics which it dis- 
cusses, and from the unquestionable ability with which they are discussed. Some of these 
topics involve the most thorough and deeply interesting changes which have occurred in 
our country, if not in modern times — changes amounting to a commercial and social revo- 
lution. They are discussed with more than usual ability. The message presents an argu- 
ment upon the great financial measure, which it vindicates — beyond all measure the most 
able, artful, and seductive of any heretofore made upon that side. In saying this, I shall 
not be suspected of any disposition to conciliate. No, sir, my position will, in all human 
probability, continue, as it has been, in opposition, whatever may be the result of the pres- 
ent contest for power. I am opposed to the general political tenets and opinions on the 
one side, and still more opposed to the universal practices of the other — to its extravagance 
and profligacy, and faithlessness to all its professions. 

But, sir, if I were disposed to go over, every one knows that no atonement, not even a 
repentance for past sins, however flagrant, for past vituperation, however scornful or se- 
vere, is required. It is a most easy service — no sacrifices whatever are required, except of 
one's conscience ; and one of the rules I understand to be, that no questions are to be asked 
of applicants for admission. 

The message, on its face and in its general statements of political doctrines, is fair 
enough. It is State rights throughout — as much so, sir, as if it had been written by you, 
who were brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, and are of the straitest sect. Whilst reading 
it, I was forcibly reminded of that noble paper. General Jackson's message of 1832 — that 
most masterly compendium of the State rights doctrines. I had, but a few days before the 
appearance of that paper, been appointed an elector of President — a position by no means 
a desirable one. The moral malaria of Jacksonism was then pervading the land in its 
wildest fury; not only the strongest safeguards of the Constitution, but the virtue and cour- 
age of the country, were destroyed in its progress. The charm of a great name was not 
then broken, nor attempted to be broken, in South Carolina. I gave the vote, and a very 
few days brought us the message. I felt that I was done up for life — that no man could 
stand in opposition to so good a States right President as that. But, sir, it was only nine 
days, nine little days, when the Proclamation followed — a most consistent commentary 
upon the text of the message ; just such commentaries as we have always had from the 
same quarter upon like professions of such principles; just such as I again anticipate. I 
most sincerely pray that it may not be so. I shall be gratified if the necessities of their 
position shall drive the Administration upon our principles — State rights principles — the 
principles of the Constitution ; but I have not even a hope that it will be so. I want con- 
fidence, and I adopt the language of indignant scorn heretofore used by a distinguished 
gentleman in remarking upon similar professions from the same quarter — " I can but ad- 
mire the audacity of the authors of the Proclamation and Force Bill claiming to be the 
guardians of State rights." 

The currency question is of course the engrpssing subject of the message. But, sir, 
there is another which is first touched, and which is net less important — more important, 






as it should be regarded by every Southern man ; yes, sir, by every man who has the heart 
of an American beating in his bosom. I allude to the savage and in every way disgraceful 
war now raging in Florida. Is that war to rage forever ? Is its further prosecution aban- 
doned ! Have the Seminoles reconquered their country 1 If so, acknowledge it yield 

it to them by treaty, and give them the honor and the fruits of their victory. Do not keep 
up a miserable show of force there, lulling the People of the Territory into a false reliance 
upon a power perfectly impotent to afford any real protection, and exposing, for no possi- 
ble good, a few of the most gallant men of your Army to all the dangers of the climate and 
of savage war, and, what to such men is infinitely worse, to the certainty of constant fail- 
ures and defeats. 

I arraign this Administration for its worse than imbecile and impotent management of 
the Florida war. If there was no other cause for opposition to those in power this itself 
is all-sufficient. Cannot the Administration, with all the resources of this great country 
conquer this miserable band of savages ? If so, let them surrender their powers to those 
who can. If they cannot, why have they not done it ? Every drop of blood that has been 
shed cries to Heaven against them. Individual atrocities and massacres, horrible as they 
are, I lose sight of altogether, when I look at the pressing importance of dislodging so 
dangerous an enemy from their fastnesses in the vicinity of the West Indies, and in the 
very centre of the South. Are gentlemen aware that the Maine boundary question is far 
very far, from yet being even in a train of adjustment, and that the utmost discretion will 
be required on the part of both Governments to avoid a war at the end of that question 1 
With even a possibility of that, is there any man who can look without indignation at so 
formidable an enemy being embodied in the very heart of the South, or at the miserable 
farce of a treaty which stipulated to yield to them a portion of the Territory 1 Sir, it is not 
the land that we want; we have too much of that already. It is the removal of the Indiana 
and that only, which will satisfy us. And what has been done to this end by this Presi- 
dent of ours 1 this Northern man with Southern principles, and his Secretary of War a 
Southern man with — (I am at a loss to say what principles, except John Randolph's cele- 
brated " seven ?") Why, sir, we have seen the larger part of the Army withdrawn from 
the only point where they were really required, and engaged in an empty pageant at Tren- 
ton — an empty pageant made still more ridiculous by a review and inspection of the dis- 
cipline and tactics by the President and his Secretary. I wonder if they were in uniform? 
I should like to have seen them, if they were. Yes, sir, the Army which should have 
been in Florida was encamped a thousand miles from the point where they were hourly 
required, when every morning's reveille was the news of the massacre of their fellow-sol- 
diers, and of the women and children of Florida. Was it to remove them from the pesti- 
lential miasma of the swamps of Florida 1 That climate was deemed good enough for the 
gallant Taylor and Harney. Why was it not so for all ? I am sure that there was none 
amongst the officers who would not have preferred to remain at the post of duty and of 
honor. Has such a thing ever before occurred ? Generally we have seen troops concen- 
trated upon the point of danger and of war — but here we see them removed from it, and 
the country left wholly exposed. 

When I saw that the President referred us approvingly to the plan of the Secretary of 
War, which he was pleased to characterize as calculated "to bring that war to a success- 
ful issue," although I believed that nothing good could come out of Nazareth," I eagerly 
turned to it to see what that plan was ; and what, sir, is this notable plan •' to bring this 
war to a successful issue?" Why, sir, it is this: First. Depriving the Seminoles of all 
sympathy. I had not known before that there was any such sympathy. I know of no one 
who has given any evidence of such a feeling, except the honorable Secretary. He cer- 
tainly has been most tenderly and compassionately regardful of their lives. His second 
suggestion is the passage of Colonel Benton's bill for the settlemrnt of Florida, which I un- 
derstand to be a proposition to give a certain quantity of land to every man who will settle 
there, and to furnish him rations and military protection into the bargain ; the entering 
wedge (and I beg that the prediction may be remembered) to a system of grants for settle- 
ment, by which the whole of the Western lands are to be got from us. The third sugges- 
tion of the honorable Secretary is to raise a new regiment, and, of course, to let him appoint 
the officers. What has yet been accomplished by the 2d dragoons, a regiment raised spe- 
cially for this service 1 Nothing that I have ever heard of. I would not object to raising 
one or more regiments if I knew who were to command them ; if I could have any assu° 
ranee that the command would be given to Gen. Floyd, of Georgia, or some other such 
man. I, however, know none such. But it will be given to no such man, but to some 
palace pet or noisy politician. These appointments have been, and will be. made not with 
a view to military, but political battles ; not with a view to obtaining victories over the In- 



dians, but voles at elections. When that regiment of dragoons was raised, many gentle- 
men in Congress interested themselves to procure an appointment for as gallant an officer 
as any in the Army, who had been more or less engaged in Indian wars for the last twenty 
years, and who was then bleeding from more than one wound from Indian rifles. He had 
no chance whatever. The appointment was given to one who, then or since, has never 
set a squadron in the field, and whose claims were not those of military talents, but politi- 
cal party services. No increase of your standing army is necessary ; you cannot increase 
your Army to a force adequate to this service, and, besides, regular troops are not the 
troops to fight Indians, and such has been our uniform experience. The only way to end 
that war is to establish abundant dep ts of supplies, and to throw into Florida fifteen or 
twenty thousand men. Let them act simultaneously and in concert, and the war will he 
ended in six weeks. I can tell the President that the present plan, or any other that ever 
will be suggested by his Secretary of War, never will bring that war to a successful issue, 
and that to rely on any such will be a criminal paltering with the lives of our people, and 
the character of the country. 

The first passage of the message on the currency subject, which strikes me is the fol- 
lowing : 

" The nineteen niillinnB of Trcasuiy notes autliorizeJ liy the uct of Congress of 1837, and the 
modifications thereof, with a view to the indulgence orniprchants on their duly bonds, and of the. 
deposite banks in tiie payment of public .moneys iield by them, iiave been so punctually redeem- 
ed, at. to leave less than the original ten millions outstanding at any one time, and the whole 
amount unredeemsd now falls short of three millions. Of these, the chief portion is not due till 
next year; and the whole would have been already e.xtinguished could the Treasuiy have realized 
the payments due to it from the banks. If those due from them during the next year shall bs 
punctually mide, and if Congress shall keep the appiopriauons within the estimates, there is 
eery reason to believe that all the outstanding Treasury notes can be redeemed, and the ordinary 
expenses defrayed, without imposing on the People any addit onal burden, either of loans or in- 
creased taxes." 

Now, sir, I must be allowed, without the slightest intentional personal disrespect to the 
President, to say, that not a single statement contained in the above extract is true. I do 
not insinuate, because I do not believe, the President capable of an intentional misstate- 
ment ; but I do say that these statements are incorrect, and that he might have and ought 
to have known better. First : were these Treasury notes issued with a view to enable the 
Government to indulge the banks and merchants ] The debt from both these sources was 
less than six millions at the period of the last issue of ten milhons of these Treasury notes. 
How, then, can a debt of six millions be the reason and the excuse for issuing ten millions 
of notes'! Although not so expressly stated, there are other passages of the message, as 
well as of the Treasury report, which imply, and are no doubt intended to imply, that in- 
dulgence to the banks was the sole reason for this issue of an unconstitutional currency. 
How gross a misrepresentation this is will he seen from the fact that, at the period of the 
last issue of ten millions, the banks owed less than two millions. I would here take oc- 
casion to say, in passing, that these deposite banks, which have been habitually denounced 
for their failures and frauds, have given evidence of a power to fulfil their engagements 
and a noble fidelity in doing so absolutely unprecedented, and beyond the hopes of the most 
sanguine, and which throughout Europe is regarded with wonder and admiration. They 
have fulfilled, to a miracle, all their engagements, and, besides that, have sustained the 
country under circumstances of difficulty and distress where the boldest might have des- 
paired. I know, sir, that these are unfashionable opinions and truths, unwholesome to 
brawling politicians — that despicable and pernicious class whose only ambition is to rise 
from that obscurity to which a want of all talent and all virtue has destined them, by join- 
ing every popular clamor, even against the best and most sacred institutions of society. I 
am not one of those " whose thoughts ever keep the road-way." I cannot lend myself to 
injustice of any sort ? What, sir, are the facts in relation to our connexion with the de- 
posite banks ? The year before the suspension they held, on account of the Government, 
more than sixty millions of money. It was contemplated by the distribution bill to with- 
draw this sum in eighteen month.s. That itself was regarded by most men who were best 
informed as a trial which the banks could not stand ; but they did. Yes, sir, and more. The 
Secretary of the Treasury, instead of allowing eighteen months for this tremendous operation, 
actually executed it in six months. I will not say, as some of his present friends have said, 
that it was done to defeat the salutary eflects of the measure. But he did it; and, to the 
astonishment of every one, the banks sustained themselves under this terrible trial, and paid 
over at once about forty millions. No man would, a priori, have said that it was possible. 
This is not all. At the period of the suspension, in 1837, the banks held on account of 
the Government twenty-three millions. Congress granted thcin indulgence for eighteen 



months. They paid all but about two millions in less than six months — refusing to avai! 
themselves of your indulgence — and have secured, as the Secretary tells us, all the balance. 
If this be faithlessness and fraud, commend me to faithlessness and fraud for the balance of 
my life. I have shown that indulgence to the banks and the merchants was not the cause 
of the issue of these Treasury notes — an issue of a Government currency which, I have 
heretofore shown in an argument which no one has attempted to answer, was a gross and 
dangerous violation of the constitution. The second statement is equally untrue, that 
the whole of the Treasury notes would have been extinguished if the Treasury could have 
realized the sums due from banks. The amount due from banks is less than two millions; 
the amount of Treasury notes outstanding is two millions and three fourths, besides inter- 
est. The last instalment from the United States Bank is not due until next September. 
The third and last, and much the most important, is, that the resources of the Government 
for the next year will be adequate to its wants, without any increased burdens of loans or 
taxes. We were told the same thing in the last annual message, almost in the same words. 
I said then that it was not true. What was the result? Why, sir, a new issue of Treas- 
ury notes. So it will be now. 

The President may not have known that this statement was incorrect, but I am very 
sure that no man on this floor who regards his character will venture to endorse this opin- 
ion. Why, sir, every body knows that it is not true. The Secretary of the Treasury very 
well knows it. Although he does not directly ask for a law to authorize the issue of ten 
millions more of Treasury notes, a whole column, and a separate subdivision of his report, 
is devoted to proving the necessity of providing some fund to meet a contingent deficiency. 
What fund does he mean ] Why, Treasury notes and nothing else ; the expedient of the 
spendthrift who has wasted his patrimony — to give his note. The President tells us that 
the resources of the Government will be adequate to its wants. I tell you they will not. 
The President has much better opportunities of judging than I have, and is under the same 
obligations to disclose the truth to the country. Now, sir, mark the result, and see who 
is right. Before six months we shall be asked to issue ten millions at least of Treasury 
notes, or to make a loan in some other form. Why is the truth not now told us ! For 
no other reason than the shame of the avowal, on the part of the President, that, coming 
into power in a time of profound peace and general prosperity, with a Treasury overflow- 
ing, he has in three years expended thirty millions over and above the accruing revenue, and 
caused an almost universal ruin and insolvency in the land. There was, when the Presi- 
dent entered on the duties of his ofiice, nine millions which was to be deposited with the 
States, five millions of surplus besides, and upwards of five millions due and which has 
been paid by the Bank of the United States, and there is now near three millions of Treas- 
ury notes outstanding, making twenty-three millions ; to which add at least ten millions for 
the present year, and we have in three years of this economical Jeffersonian Administration 
an excess of expenditure over income of thirty-three millions. As to the future, I look to 
it with absolute dismay ; no eye can penetrate the gloom of that future. We must pay to 
England alone next year, for excess of imports over exports, and interest on State debts, 
not less than sixty millions. The same produce cannot pay this debt and also pay for goods, 
from which revenue is to be derived ; and when our produce fails, the debt can only be paid 
in specie, and the specie will be exported by laws of commerce, as fixed and certain as des- 
tiny itself. So certain, sir, am I of these results, that all other feelings are forgotten in a 
symathy with the sufferings of the country ; and if I had an enemy among the authors of 
this measure, I would desire for him no other punishment than that which awaits him in 
the wrath and indignation of an abused and deceived people. That day is coming, and is 
not far distant, and I shall have no other, if I desire no other, consolation than to be able to 
say to those who have confided their interests to me, that I have done all that I could to 
avert these calamities. 

I see no human power now to avert the impending distress. This debt must be paid 
either with our productions — and then we cannot make our usual importations, and, of con- 
sequence, the demand for our cotton is cut off, and the article not only falls lower in price, 
but cannot be sold at all — or else this debt nmnt be paid in specie, and that, in the present 
condition of the country, will be ruin at once ; not to the banks, but to the People. Not, I 
repeat, to the banks, but to the People. If the banks are forced to pay, the People, their 
debtors, must pay them. The banks owe the People one hundred and fifty millions, the 
People owe them five hundred millions. On whom will the bolt fall most heavily 1 It will 
be a golden harvest for shavers and usurers — they will fatten and grow rich upon the suf- 
fering and distress of the community. They, and they only, will be benefited. And, if I 
am not mistaken, it is this class, together with those who either ovv'c no money, or, if they 
do, are beyond the reach of the law, and have no sympathy with those who do owe, who are 



the loudest advocates of this most vital and dangerous revolution in the monetary affairs o( 
the country ; men who have a most philosophical and praisworthy indifference to the suffer- 
ings of every one else but themselves. No Government has the right to make such an ex- 
periment upon the happiness of its people — to carry out any theory, however plausible. 

The debts of the country were contracted upon the faith of and with reference to an ex- 
isting state of things which no Government has the moral right to subvert all at once, upon 
the authority of any argument a priori. 

One word more as to the nine millions yet to be deposited with the States. I like some- 
times to look back as well as forward. It is often profitable to do so. We were told two 
years ago that the act was not repealed. Oh no ! The payment was only postponed. 
And it was vaunted in my own State as a great achievement to postpone the payment instead 
of repealing the law. When are we to get it, sir] Not, sir, until the day of judgment. 
Or, what is the same thing, until your present Secretary shall put an end the the Florida 
war. No, sir, I will freely forgive the balance of that debt, if the Government can only be 
kept along. I repeat, sir, that no intelligent man will say that the resources for the next 
and succeeding years will meet our wants. Those resources are greatly exaggerated, whilst 
the demands on the Treasury are underrated. From the excessive importation of the last 
year, and the universal pressure in the money market, added to our immense foreign debt, 
the revenue from imports for the ensuing year must be very small — less, I venture to say, 
than any one anticipates : very much less than the estimate of the Secretary of the Treasu- 
ry. From the public lands I look hereafter for little revenue ; first, because so much of 
the public domain has gone into the hands of private speculators, who will supersede the 
Government in the market, because they own the best lands, and can sell on credit and for 
paper money ; and, secondly, because these lands are like to be used by political specula- 
tors, as the corn in the public granaries was used in the days of the decline of the Roman 
F.mpire. No, sir, instead of reduced taxes, we shall be forced to raise the taxes, and, I be- 
lieve, up to the extreme point fixed by the compromise of 1382. 

By-the-by, sir, as to this tariff question: I was told by more than one, who I think enjoy 
the President's confidence, that the message would be up to the hub with the South on the 
tariff — that it would even be ultra. I was glad to hear it. I was glad to know that we 
were to get aid from so influential a quarter, from whatever motive; as I owe no such al- 
legiance, party or personal, anywhere, and never will, as to prevent me from rallying to 
the support of those who rally to the support of just principles. I looked for the passage, 
hut I looked in vain. I saw exactly the place for it, but it was not there. No, sir, it was 
not there; but, in its place, I found all those ad captandum arguments about rendering 
ourselves independent of the currency and commerce of England, which have heretofore 
been,' and may be again, used in support of a protective tariff, more appropriately than they 
are used in the message for another purpose. Sir, it is degrading to the intelligence of our 
age and country to talk in this way. We had as well talk of rendering ourselves independ- 
ent of the tides or the winds of Heaven. Why, let me ask, is this anti-tariff ground not 
taken in the message? I will tell you, sir. I have been given to understand that it is be- 
cause a very important political event is to take place next autumn, and that the thoroughly 
tariff States, Pennsylvania and Ohio — States now doubtful, to say the least — will have an 
important influence upon that event, and that it may not be very discreet, at this particular 
time, to take ground against the tariff; and, although he doubtless possesses all the other 
parts of valor, no one has ever denied to the President that better part of it — "discretion." 
Especially need he not do so when nothing is to be gained by it. The South is clearly his 
already, by deed and covenant duly executed ; and it would be mere wantoiuiess thus un- 
necessarily to risk Pennsylvania and Ohio. I have been told, however, to wait, and that, 
in due time, this ground will be assumed — in other words, I am to aid in cheating the tariff 
States out of their votes. What security have we that we shall not be deceived ourselves, 
as we have been already once on this very same subject, and by the very same person? 
No, sir ; no great end was ever yet accomplished by such means. If no power is left me 
to resist the odious and dishonest operation of the tariff policy but fraud and trick, I have 
no confidence in them, and should not resort to them if I had. 

It is due to the country that the opinions of the President should have been known upon 
a great and exciting question which must very soon come up. It is especially so, as he 
has set up the dangerous pretension of being (as repeated usurpations, not the constitution, 
have really made him) "a component part of the legislative power." If he has one-half 
of the confidence in the judgment and patriotism of the People which he habitually professes, 
he need not fear to disclose his true opinions. Let him take one side or the other. He 
has no right to take both. I do not wish to cheat others, nor to be again cheated myself. 

I have a word or two to say upon the great subject of the message — the currency ques- 



6 

tion. Our worthy President seems to have a regular intermittent upon this subject. At 
the extra session the hard money fever was upon him, but at the last session there was a 
rlear intermission of this fever; even, sir, a chill had supervened. He then said : " Like 
other State establishments, they [banks] may be used or not, in conducting the affairs of the 
Government." " When the Government can accomplish a financial operation better with 
the aid of the banks than without it, it should be at liberty to seek that aid," &c. The 
dangerous tendency of the connexion of the Government with banks was tlien to be ar- 
rested, by giving to the Executive the undivided power and uncontrolled discretion to em- 
ploy them or not. It was dangerous, in other words, to trust this power to the Executive 
and Congress, but perfectly safe to confide it altogether to the Executive. 

It is a melancholy truth that, whilst there is a party in this country who watch every 
encroachment of the Federal Government upon the rights of the States, we all seem to shut 
our eyes to the not less dangerous usurpations of the Executive upon the other and co-or- 
dinate departments of the Federal Government. A more daring encroachment of that sort 
has never been made than in this — that it is dangerous to the public liberty to trust this 
connexion with the banks to Congress — the immediate agents and representatives of the 
People; but that the discretionary power to use banks or not shall be given to the Presi- 
dent. Brought up, sir, in the creed of the Republican party — the old, the true, the once 
respectable Republican party — one of my earliest and most fixed political opinions has been 
to look to the Executive department as the point of real danger, and to resist the smallest 
beginnings of Executive encroachment. 

We were also told in the last message of the beneficial results from receiving the notes 
of specie-paying hanks, and the bill introduced as the Government measure did not contain 
the specie feature. I had some hopes that it was abandoned. I regret to see that it not 
only has not been, but that the mask is now thrown off, and the purpose distinctly avowed, 
not only to require Government dues in specie, but to do this with the view of driving out 
of circulation bank paper altogether, and to reduce the banks exclusively to offices of dis- 
count and deposite. Is the country prepared for this ? I rejoice that the true purpose is 
at last avowed. I have known from, the beginning that such was the purpose. I have 
been accused of disingenuousness for saying so. I have, therefore, a personal satisfaction 
that I now stand vindicated; still more do I rejoice that this monstrous proposition is now 
exhibited in its naked deformity. 

If any thing, in these times, was to be wondered at, it would be that State rights politi- 
cians should advocate this measure, not for its direct financial effects as to the Federal Gov- 
ernment, but for its indirect influence upon State institutions — the banks. All admit the 
right of the States to charter banks; none will assert the right of the Federal Government 
to destroy or even control these coporations by direct legislation ; but the power to do so is 
claimed, and by State-rights men, under the iiidired use of a power given for a wholly dif- 
ferent purpose. If the revenue power may thus be perverted from its legitimate purpose, 
why may not the same revenue power be used for the indirect purpose of protecting man- 
ufactures'! If you may use a granted power to effect, and ivith the view to effect a pur- 
pose for which it was not, and never would have been granted, what is there to prevent the 
power of taxation from being used to effect abolition, by a tax say of fifty dollars for every 
person held in bondage ? If you can control or destroy one State institution — the banks, 
why may you not do the same with another — domestic slavery ? I defy any man to suggest 
the shadow of a reason for the one which does not apply with equal force to the other. 

We are told that banks, in isome form, will always exist in this country, and are urged 
to place these banks on the footing on which they exist in some other countries — that is, 
banks of deposite and discount, not of issue. "Credit currency and credit commerce" are 
denounced as the sources of all our troubles. Now, what does he mean by credit curren- 
cy ? Nothing. He can mean nothing but bank notes over and above the specie in hand, 
"dollar for dollar, and guilder for guilder." Here, sir, is a distinct avowal of a purpose to 
bring the country to an exclusive metallic currency. No one will say that there is any 
practical difference between a metallic currency and a paper currency representing gold and 
silver, dollar for dollar. If there is, in other words, fifty millions of specie in the country, 
we are to have only fifty millions of paper issued, and that not to be added to the specie, 
but the specie to be withdrawn and locked up, and the paper only to circulate. So that, 
as to the amount of currency, no one will pretend that we shall have any more than if that 
currency were in gold and silver only. Is the country prepared for that? 

But, sir, is bank paper beyond the specie in the vaults any more a credit currency than 
that where there is specie, dollar for dollar? Not a whit; and none but very shallow think- 
ers, or those who know better, have said so. Is there no basis of credit but gold and silver? 
Fs nothing else of any real value ? Is there no other property in the land ? Is not the note 



of John Jacob Astor for a thousand dollars good, and so regarded, although it may be known 
that he has not fifty in specie 1 It is time that this absurd slang about specie should be ex- 
posed. Specie is not only not the sole foundation of the credit of bank paper — it is not even 
the principal foundation, but the property of the debtors of the banks, and the stock itself is 
the chief foundation of that credit. Is it not so as to the credit of individuals] Is credit 
given because of a known amount of specie held by the debtor? Clearly not; for, in that 
case, he would need no credit, but would use his specie. No, sir; I repeat, it is property 
to which credit is given — that property of which gold and silver is the mere yard-stick. 

Is this not true 1 After the banks had suspended, and it was known that they had no 
specie, have we not only seen their notes passing, but passing at par for every thing else 
but specie ] And, as to that, it is not the fall in the value of the note, but the rise in the 
market value of the specie. Yes, sir, when in that condition, every one is willing to ex- 
change the very best individual notes, drawing interest, for those bank-notes drawing none. 
Why is this, if specie is the sole basis of their credit 1 I do not intend to be misunderstood. 
I am no indiscriminate advocate of the banking system, still less of its excesses and vices. 
I go further: I know that reforms, vital and radical, are required ; and I believe that, if these 
reforms are not made, the system will be run down. I am no apologist for bank suspen- 
sions. I think the last one without excuse. Specie is necessary ; it is the only measure 
by which we are to know when bank issues are excessive ; but, to bring the country, in its 
present condition, and with the paper system now prevailing almost throughout the world, 
to a metallic currency, is a project absurd and impossible. I have no apprehensions what- 
ever of that ; my fears are of a different character. I do not doubt that, by the swing of the 
pendulum, as natural in the moral as in the physical world, the reaction will be to reinstate 
the paper system in its utmost excesses, and most probably to establish a Government bank — 
an institution which I do not hesitate to say the public liberty will not long survive. No 
such tre'mehdous revolution in the personal circumstances of men as that proposed ever 
can be effected but by the iron hand of despotism. It never will be done where the People 
have the power in their own hands. It is in the nature of man to disregard ultimate results 
in seeking present relief from pressing calamities, and there is no such calamity as a rapidly 
diminishing currency. My life on it, the People will not bear it. 

Infinite as have been the losses, the sufferings, and the misery which have already resulted 
from this fatal experiment, we have not yet seen the worst. There has been a general for- 
bearance; it cannot be so always. The advocates of this hard-money policy well know 
it. There is no single State in the Union that would not instantly crush the experiment 
and the experimenters, if they were called on to pay direct taxes in specie. Is this denied 1 
If it is to act beneficially on the banks by creating a practical drain for specie, that is a 
reason equally strong for demanding State taxes in specie. Why has no one ever' had 
ihe boldness to propose this in any State Legislature. Why, sir, because those taxes are 
collected directly, and the People would not bear it; and yet we see anti-tariff men, by the 
secret and unseen operation of that law, doing what they would not dare openly to propose. 

The State which I in part represent is regarded as almost unanimous in favor of this 
specie policy. Its Legislature may be said to be so. I have for the intelligence and purity 
and patriotism of that People a respect and deference which I cannot here express, and I 
allude to these things for no unworthy or disrespectful purpose, but it is a fair illustration 
of what will be the result of this humbug every where. 

A portion of our banks have suspended specie payments, some of them with twice as 
much specie on hand as they have bills out. A proposition was made to the last Legisla- 
ture to coerce a resumption by these banks of specie payments. And what do you think 
was the result 1 It was rejected by a large majority. This was not all : we have a State 
bank, owned by the State exclusively. It was proposed at a preceding session to receive 
nothing for taxes but specie or the bills of this State bank — a very reasonable proposition 
surely. Did it pass the Legislature ? — this sub-Treasury hard-money Legislature ? Oh 
no, sir, but the tax collectors were ordered to receive the bills of all the banks — non-specie- 
paying bank rags and all. They did more ; whilst inveighing against banks and the credit 
system, they doubled the chartered bank capital of the State, and have created a larger 
debt for the State than was done by all former Legislatures from the beginning of the Gov- 
ernment. 

A case still more striking is furnished by the recent action of the Administration party, 
a hard-money, sub-Treasury Legislature, with the sanction of the hard-money Governor of 
the enlightened and patriotic State of Georgia. The Legislature of that State, which has 
just adjourned, has established a bank more thoroughly a paper bank than any that ever has 
existed in any country — a bank, sir, which would amaze John Law himself, if he could 
be allowed to see what is now going on. He, sir, would be shocked at this wild excess of 
the paper system. The Central Bank of Georgia, whose affairs at the last report stood 



8 

^}iU5— specie, $46,000; circulation, $86,000, and bonds and notes amounting to about 
$3,000,000 — is ordered (not authorized, but ordered) to issue six millions of notes — double 
the currency of the State — and to loan the money in the respective counties according to 
population, on bonds due in twelve months. They issue six millions of paper on forty- 
six thousand of specie, and promise to pay specie on demand, when the debts to the bank 
are not due for a year. They cannot even pay bank notes for a year, and yet they promise 
to pay in specie on demand ; and this, too, sir, when a draft of the State for three hundred 
thousand dollars has been recently protested, without any provision whatever being made 
to meet it; but, on the contrary, stock which was hypothecated for its payment is ordered 
to be sold for other purposes. This law was signed on Friday, and the Bank suspended 
the next Monday. These, sir are characteristic signs of what will be the general feeling 
and the general results, in the end, of this most disastrous experiment upon the happiness, 
and fortunes, and business of the People. I rejoice, therefore, that the purposes of the 
Administration are at length avowed. If these objects are sanctioned any where, I shall 
be disappointed. If there is one man in South Carolina who is in favor of abolishing bank 
paper as a currency, I have never seen him. 

We were told, when this measure was first brought forward, that it would especially 
benefit the South. That it was our staples which would be exchanged for specie, and 
that additional value would be given to those staples. Has this been so 1 Has indeed the 
amount of specie in the country increased for the last two years 1 It has not. Why not 1 
We were told to drive out paper, and specie would lake its place. One-half of the baftk 
notes have been driven out — has their place been filled ] Nor, sir; that place is literally 
♦' an aching void." I thought at first — and was confirmed in that opinion by the ^thority 
of such men as Dallas and Crawford, than whom this country has produced n^ne abler or 
better, and they spoke not from abstract and delusive speculation, but from ^U4i.e](f*eft- 
ence — that it would enrich New York, the great centre of commerce — the place at which, 
not from which, payments were to be made at the expense of all the rest of the country. 
Has it not so turned out ? Gold and silver abound even to excess in that city, whilst every 
where else there is, amongst business men, dismay and despair. Benefit the South ! Why, 
sir, it has been, and will be, a protective tariif in its worst form. Reduce ours to a hard 
money country, and reduce prices accordingly, and who does not see that the manufactures 
of the rest of the world where the paper system prevails cannot be sold here 1 and an abso- 
lute monopoly is given to the American manufacturer, at prices nominally cheaper, but ac- 
tually and relatively higher — destroying our great market for Southern staples at a time 
when the supply of those staples must be enormously increased from suspension of works 
of ioternal improvement, and an immense amount of labor is about to be thrown again 
upon agriculture, to say nothing of other causes ? In all sincerity I say, sir, I tremble 
when I look to the future, especially in the South. 

The President attaches much importance to the fact which he states, that there is never 
any large amount at any one time in the hands of collectors, &c. Who did not know 
that ? Who did not know that the profligate waste of the public money by this spendthrift 
Administration, at the same time that our revenues were greatly diminished, had forced the 
Government literally to live from hand to mouth 1 Nay, more, sir, to resort to the most 
despicable shifts to "raise the wind 1" — no other phrase will so well express the idea. To 
do that which vrould irretrievably disgrace a private man — to draw for money when they 
knew they had none on which to draw ? But, sir, this state of things, it is to be hoped, 
is not to last always. If we should ever again have a full Treasury, the currency will be 
disastrously contracted, and, what is more, your sub-Treasurers, with large amounts of 
gold and silver on hand, may ruin at will every bank in the country. Will not this give 
a political power over those institutions which may well be dreaded ? 

I was very much surprised to see that so able and adroit a writer as the President should 
have been guilty of so gross an inconsistency as I find in the Message. The great argu- 
ment of the Message in favor of the measure is not that it will give a good currency, gold 
and silver, for the use of the Government, but the eifect it is to have on the banks. To 
this end it is .aid that it will be all-powerful. How can it be so but by causing the banks, 
by reason of this constant drain of specie, greatly to restrict their issues 1 And yet we 
are immediately afterwards told that the sum required for the uses of the Government will 
be so very small that it will really hardly affect the banks at all — a very Hercules at one 
moment — as powerless as a sleeping infant the next. 

I must apologize for detaining the House so long, but I felt it to be my duty to call the 
public attention to some of the points of this Message, especially to the startling propo- 
sition to abolish, in effect, bank paper, and thus to operate on State institutions by the in- 
direct use of a power granted for other and different purposes — a power which never would 
have been granted for the purpose for which it is now proposed to be used. 



^7^ 



LB D =10 



LIBRARY OF 



CONGRESS 




011 896 363 5 




